Examining Associations Between Individual Exercise, Parent–Child Exercise, and Children’s Mental Health: A Structural Equation Modeling Approach

Objective: This study explores the associations between parent–child exercise and children’s mental health from the perspective of family physical education. Methods: In total, 527 valid questionnaires were collected from students in grades four to six of three primary schools in Yuhang District, Hangzhou City, including a survey of the status of children’s exercise and family sports and the SCL-90 symptom self-measurement scale. Based on an analysis of practical challenges in family sports engagement and children’s mental health status, the data were analyzed and modeled using structural equation modeling to obtain a model of children’s mental health promotion, with individual children’s exercise as the primary factor and parent–child exercise as the mediator. Results: Both individual children’s exercise and parent–child exercise were significant predictors of children’s mental health promotion. Parent–child activities show a more significant negative correlation with symptoms of anxiety and depression than individual exercise alone. They also partially mediated the relationship between individual exercise and depression/anxiety symptoms. The indirect effects had confidence intervals of [−0.008, −0.001] for depression and [−0.007, −0.001] for anxiety. The direct effects of individual exercise on mental health (depression: β = −0.115; anxiety: β = −0.127) were stronger than the indirect effects and significantly positively correlated with parent–child exercise (β = 0.444, p < 0.05), suggesting that individual exercise may encourage more parent–child exercise. Conclusions: We propose a relational pathways model incorporating parent–child exercise as a mediating variable and individual exercise as the primary activity. This model is more closely aligned with real-life conditions and practical feasibility than approaches lacking such a family-based component.